Outline Review and More Research

Today, I’ve updated “Too Broad Outline to Specific Outline and Work Plan”, Nov. 6 09’s entry. I added “Pripyat, Slavutych and area” to the “Describe Chernobyl, item c”. It now reads: “Chernobyl, Pripyat, Slavutych and area before the accident, during and afterwards.”

Also, I will try to write a page a day, but will be lenient with myself when research takes more time than I planned. Research is a good thing; something many people view as time wasting, but facts, ideas and knowledge are healthy food for imagination. A lot of people view vegetables as basically, a waste of time also. Stupid people.

I also think I will add a plot outline. I’ve got the theme of me, the author, being a lost, lonely, confused and depressed woman, but how is this author going to become part of the story? How is she going to interact with the man, the alien and the toad? I’ll finish my research first, though.

Reading about Chernobyl, it doesn’t seem like such a terrible disaster compared to some of the stuff going on in the world today. It maybe bad for humans, but really, nature is timeless and self-healing. So what if humans made a grave mistake making an area of the world uninhabitable for humans? Anyway, I think an interesting plot is best left to write until after my research is done.

I also think I would like to add another character or two possibly. I’m fascinated by the mushrooms – I’m in love with the mushrooms! I would like to hang out with them. Wonderful, friendly little black guys - like the little dust ball helpers in the Japanese children’s show, Denno Coil, or the coal dust in Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away - who also pack a big whallop if they want to. The mushroom type growing around Chernobyl Reactor No. 4, cryptococcus neoformans, can live inside animals and humans, causing lung infection and eventual death if not treated.

Here’s a few more research items I found while looking up the name of the mushrooms:

1. I read one report that said the design of the reactor was the real reason for the failure. I just tried to find the report (but couldn’t). It said something about emails between Soviet leaders acknowledging that design problems were the reason for the failure, followed by media reports in Pravda, the govt. newspaper, that plant operators caused the disaster.

2. Construction on the Chernobyl plant and Pripyat, the city to house the workers, started in 1970, a full 16 years before the accident. When the accident happened, two more reactors were under construction and to this day, a multitude of cranes still exists at the site, abandoned mid-job.